Going through my lead pile, I found a lot of the fantasy bits and pieces I'd gathered could be grouped by some general themes, enough that I could start building a few small skirmish gangs. After buying Brink of Battle and it's Epic Heroes expansion, it'll give me an excuse to pull them out of the lead pile too!
I have a lot of
GW Chaos minis in particular, that I'd like to start with; only problem was that the tiny roving gang would be made up of a bunch of hulking lords and champions. So I thought I could divide them up to lead different gangs, and that meant I needed a few more grunts. For those I want to do something with the older fluff of cultists and turncoats within the Empire, rather than what it turned into: a solid line above Kislev, with everyone north of it on Chaos' side and everybody below it strictly not-Chaos. (And I don't like those plastic marauders anyway)
I thought it'd be a good excuse to buy my first box of Perry medievals. Those arrived. They're very nice, but miniscule compared the chunky 32-35mm
GW minis. I might keep those for the ASoIaF idea in the back of my head, but in the meantime I went and ordered an Empire free company box. Better. In a way. I think I can flesh those out a bit more with a flagellant box, as well as other bits and pieces. And putty, of course.
At the mo I plan to make gangs for all four powers. As with the grunts, I want to try some of their minor themes that might've become more sidelined in all the flanderisation of recent years.
- Nurgle. I want to try a happy-go-lucky, clownish feel, like the Mordheim
Carnival of
Chaos. Red and yellow motley and heraldry.
- Slaanesh. Rather than a gang of boobs, a gang of gluttons, narcissists, elitists, sadists, anal perfectionists, etc.
- Khorne. Thinking of a Bretonnian knight and his shrinking retinue, seeking honourable combat. It'll mean buying yet more minis, though. What a horrible predicament.
- Tzeentch. Not entirely sure about this one. I might nick the elitist bit from Slaanesh - a scheming younger son of imperial nobility, turned out when it was discovered just where he was willing to find help? Might model him with a baldrick. And a percy.
In addition, I've got a bunch of Heresy goblins, among others; a few Hasslefree dwarfs that could need expanding; some dungeoneers - barbarians, wizards, clerics, thieves etc. (though some of these are kind of slight and might go into the ASoIaF pile) And I might pull some individuals from Lion/Dragon Rampant retinues of skaven, ogres and C11 halflings (my preciousesss), high elves, dark elves...
First things first, though. Here are the initial minis for the Nurgle gang, before I attack some of 'em with putty. Bonus points if you can identify them. I still have to figure out how to divvy up the other, more generic Chaos minis...
